Migration and the Islamization of Europe

The Synod on the Family in Rome, October 2015 addressed
many issues vital to the survival of the family, with
one notable exception. It's ironic that while the bishops are
discussing ways to strengthen the Christian family, they are
simultaneously helping to enable the spread of a family system
that is inimical to the Christian view of marriage.

The system I refer to allows polygamy and temporary marriage
for men, allows men to marry children, allows men to
divorce their wives with ease, and, in general, looks upon
wives and children as little more than property.

It is, according to former Muslims such as Nonie Darwish,
Wafa Sultan, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a highly dysfunctional
system which results in a tangle of family pathologies. As
Nonie Darwish notes, the Muslim family system not only
creates distrust between man and wife, but also between
father and son, mother and daughter-in-law and between
the wife and her friends (who are potential rivals for a
husband's affections). Nonie Darwish concludes that the dysfunctional
and violent nature of Islamic societies is simply
the Islamic family system writ large: "I truly believe that
the anger that is pushing the wheels of Islamic terrorism
can be traced to pent-up anger within the Muslim family."

All of which tilts the odds against you if you were born in
Tehran or Peshawar. But what does it have to do with bishops
meeting in Rome? Only that many of them-the European
bishops in particular-have been encouraging the importation
of this family structure into Europe. Not directly,
of course, but by embracing open immigration policies that
will allow Muslim family values to take root in Europe.

This welcoming attitude didn't emerge just in response to
the recent wave of migrants and refugees. It's been the
Church's semi-official policy for decades. But over the decades
the situation has changed. What was once a trickle of
immigrants is now a flood. What hasn't changed, however,
is the bishops' assessment of the situation. They are still
relying on rationales for immigration that are long past their
sell-by date: that young immigrants will solve Europe's labor
shortage, replenish its welfare coffers, and enrich its
culture with their talents.

In short, the bishops have never admitted the possibility
that mass immigration has a decided downside. For Fr. Matthew
Gardzinski of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral
Care of Migrants, the only downside is for the immigrant's
country of origin: Thus, "while one country loses the persons
who migrate, the receiving country gains their ideas
and creativity."

Of course, the pragmatic arguments for welcoming migrants
and refugees pale beside the moral arguments-especially
when they come from the Pope himself. In his message
for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees, Pope
Francis said that in welcoming the stranger "we open our
doors to God... in the face of others we see the face of
Christ himself."

But given the magnitude of Muslim immigration into Europe,
a question arises: Can we see the face of Christ in
native Europeans? In listening to the Pope and prominent
bishops, one gets the impression that indigenous Europeans
are all comfortable, and somewhat selfish, upper-middleclass
burghers with spare rooms to spare in their spacious
chalets. Migrants and refugees, on the other hand, are portrayed
as victims of forces beyond their control. But a great
many Europeans feel the same way about their own lives.
They have little or no say about the rules that are set for
them in Brussels. And, as poll after poll has shown, a majority
of Europeans see themselves as victims of EU immigration
policies.

Many of them, moreover, do not think of themselves as
"victims" in the broad sense of being inconvenienced by
rules imposed by distant Eurocrats. Increasingly, Europeans
are becoming victims in the more narrow sense of the
word-that is, victims of violent crimes: rape, assault, and
robbery. That kind of victimhood has been a problem for
quite a while. Sweden has long had the dubious distinction
of having the world's second highest incidence of rape, and
it's estimated that over the last two decades, approximately
one million English women and girls have been raped by
(mostly Muslim) immigrants. The new wave of Muslim
immigrants-75 percent of whom are single males-seems
likely to create many new rape victims. As Pat Condell, an
acerbic YouTube commentator, puts it, "the European Union
is importing a violent, misogynistic rape culture that directly
threatens the safety of women."

The "rape culture" is, in turn, a product of the violent family
patterns that Nonie Darwish describes: "physical abuse
of women in Muslim culture is very common," "girls are
physically beaten by their brothers and fathers," "boys are
given messages of hostility toward a girl's uncovered head,
arms, and legs," and are told that "those uncovered girls
deserve to be disrespected."

Of course, just about all European girls and women are
uncovered and thus deserving of disrespect. As Condell puts
it, "Third World Muslim men are raised from the cradle to
despise and fear women and to treat them as inferior."

The rapes have already begun in the refugee centers. A
letter from a coalition of social work organizations about
conditions in one German camp reports "numerous rapes,
sexual assaults," and "forced prostitution." The victims are,
for the most part, fellow Muslims who, if they are covered,
would usually have some degree of protection. If Muslim
women who follow the rules are victimized, what will happen
once the men leave the refugee centers and start mingling
with the locals who are not forbidden to them? Under
Islamic law, infidel women and girls who live in the Dar al-
Harb (House of War) are fair game.

Soeren Kern, a senior fellow at the Gatestone Institute,
reports that the rape of German women by asylum seekers
is already "commonplace." He details twenty-one cases,
many of them involving teen aged girls and younger. He
suggests that there are many more incidents which are covered
up by police and public officials "because they do not
want to give legitimacy to critics of mass immigration."

Are the bishops trying to protect their own established
narrative by emphasizing the positive aspects of immigration?
In light of what is happening, it seems that they have a
responsibility to do more than simply remind Catholics of
their moral duty to welcome the stranger. First of all, they
have a responsibility to understand Islam and the kind of
culture it generates. Unfortunately, many of them seem
wedded to a fantasy-based conception of Islam. In the minds
of many clerics, Islam is a close cousin of Christianity-an
exotic cousin to be sure, but one who shares the same essential
principles.

The reality-a reality that many bishops have not yet come
to terms with-is that Islam is a radically different faith
with a radically different moral code. A couple of years ago,
the Afghan parliament rejected a measure that would have
banned child marriage. The measure also would have banned
the "practice of buying or selling women to settle disputes"
and would have protected rape victims from criminal charges
of fornication or adultery. Opponents of the measure said
that it "violated Islamic principles."

Unless the bishops understand "Islamic principles" better
than Afghan legislators, they had better take stock of what
sort of culture is being introduced into Europe. It will be
difficult enough to repair the damage that has already been
done to the family by secular relativists. It would be folly to
compound the problems families face by enabling the spread
of a culture that is opposed at almost every juncture to the
Christian view of family.

It's not just a matter for the heart but for the head as well.
In an article for Catholic World Report, Fr. Nicholas Gregoris
writes: "There appear to be two main contingents at the
Synod: one that favors the proclamation of the truth with
clarity and in the fullness of Christian charity; and the other
favoring mercy at any and all costs..."

One suspects that the mercy-at-all-costs contingent are also
the ones who believe in welcoming immigrants at all costs
and without much thought for the consequences. Indeed,
Cardinal Reinhard Marx, the president of the German bishops'
conference, made a trip to the Munich train station to
offer a highly publicized welcome to asylum-seekers. In the
same vein, he wants to open the Church doors as wide as
possible to remarried divorcees and homosexual couples
without asking much in return. "It is not about finding ways
to keep them out," he said in an interview with America,
the Jesuit weekly, "we must find ways to welcome them."

Where is all this welcoming leading? The answer may be
provided by another bishop-the Right Reverend Eva
Brunne, Bishop of Stockholm. She is Sweden's first lesbian
bishop, and the first to be in an official same-sex registered
partnership (with another priestess). She made headlines
recently for her proposal to remove the Christian symbols
of the Seamen's Church in Freeport "to make it more inviting
for visiting sailors from other religions." According to
the story, "the bishop wants to temporarily make the
Seamen's Church available to all, for example by marking
the direction of Mecca and removing Christian symbols..."

Temporarily? What if some of the visiting sailors decide
to put down roots in Freeport? What if the local imam proposes
that the Seamen's Church be turned into a mosque?
Bishop Brunne is of a welcoming disposition, but she doesn't
seem to have thought out the consequences of her own and
of Sweden's embrace of Muslim migrants. Given the deteriorating
situation in Sweden and given her sexual orientation,
one suspects the time is approaching when Bishop
Brunne will be the one who is no longer welcome in Sweden.

She may someday find herself a refugee-one of a number
who need asylum from an increasingly Islamized Europe.
Europe's unreflective welcoming response is setting
the continent up for some unintended and unpleasant consequences.